Thursday, April 12, 2007

Just Intonation is the eigen-Key

My last post talked about the mathematical theory of tuning and how the accepted music tuning is just an approximation. The limitations of a fixed (discrete) amount of keys in a musical instrument impose conditions on the continuum of musical harmonics that are realistically resolved by having not-quite-perfect tunnings.

The perfect, idealized, precise and correct tuning is called Just Intonation.

Electronic music doesn't have the limitations that a real instrument have, and it can be tuned using Just Intonation. If you want to learn more about it, this is a good primer. If you want to hear how it sounds, here it is.

The differences are very small and hard to detect to the "usual" intonation. But, just consider the possibilities of an utopia of so many musical tones living together in the ultimate perfect harmony. Can you imagine a 61st harmonic living with the 137th one? That would be beautiful.

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